Paint brush holder



Sept. 13, 1960 B. JACOBSON PAINT BRUSH HOLDER Filed Jan. 28, 1957 HTTOENEKY United States Patent PAINT BRUSH HOLDER Bror Jacobson, 96 Shoreham Terrace, Fairfield, Conn.

Filed Jan. 28, 1957, Ser. No. 636,803

4 Claims. (Cl. 211-65) The present invention relates to a holder for paint brushes and more particularly to such a holder for maintaming paint brushes in a container having a paint cleaning solvent in order to remove old paint from the brush bristles.

With the type of paint brushes and solvent presently being sold, only a small portion of the bristles of the brush need be located in the paint cleaning solvent for the brush to have old paint properly removed. This is particularly true of paint brushes having nylon bristles since the bristles do not absorb paint and the solvent readily causes the old paint to run down the bristles into the solvent. Present brush holders now available for holding a brush in a vertical position with the bristles in a solvent, only hold the brush at one distance from the bottom of the solvent container and hence the amount of the bristles immersed in the solvent is determined solely by the amount of solvent used which in the majority of cases requires more solvent than necessary for the brush cleaning operation. Moreover the evaporation of the solvent varies the amount of brush immersed from the desired level and this factor must be compensated for by the use of a quantity of solvent which is initially more than required. In addition to this, sludge formed from old paint, settles on the bottom of the container and should not be in contact with the brush bristles but with the use of present fixed holder's such is apt to occur. Another shortcoming of present brush holders is their lack of accommodating a plurality of brushes having different bristle lengths on a single holder such that each brush has only the desired amount of bristles located in the solvent.

Itis accordingly an object of the present invention to obviate the. above deficiencies by providing a brush holder in which the brushes may be positioned with respect to the bottom of the container such that the amount of bristles of the brushes immersed in the solvent may be adjusted to the desired level without altering the quantity of solvent in the'container.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a brush holder which enables brushes having varying lengths of handles and bristles to be immersed in the solvent, in which each brush may be individually adjusted with relation to the level of solvent so that each brush has its desired amount of bristle in the solvent.

A further object of the present invention is to provide a brush holder which is economical to manufacture, readily performs its intended functions, is easily positioned within the solvent container, and requires that only a minimum quantity of solvent be used.

A feature of the present invention in addition to attaining the above objects resides in a paint brush holder which is so dimensioned that it can fit within a standard size paint container, such as a one gallon can, obviating the use of a specially constructed container. In addition, the holder of the present invention has demountable legs and brush holding pins which may be manually removed or inserted to enable the holder to form a compact package such that it may be conveniently stored or shipped.

Other objects and advantages will hereinafter appear.

In the drawing:

Figure 1 is a perspective view of the paint brush holder of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is an elevation of the holder when used to hold brushes in a container having solvent, with the container being shown in section.

Fig. 3 is a plan view of Fig. 2.

Referring to the drawing, the brush holder is generally indicated by the reference numeral 10 and consists of a base 11, a vertically extending standard or rod '12 and a sleeve 13. The sleeve 13 is an elongated annular ring with the rod 12 extending through the sleev'es axial aperture. The size of the aperture and sleeve permits the sleeve to be readily slid along the rod. A set screw 14 on the sleeve 13 is utilized to lock the sleeve at the desired position on the rod 12.

The paint brush holder of the present invention is designed to hold a plurality of brushes and to accomplish this, the sleeve 13 is formed with a series of apertures 15. Within these apertures 15 the ends of impaling pins 16 are located with the pins extending outwardly and inclined upwardly therefrom. The brushes 17 are each provided with a hole in their handles through which the pins may be inserted. While such a construction is shown in the illustrated embodiment, it is within the scope of the present invention to use clips on the ends of the pins to hold the brushes rather than using an impaling pin if such construction is desired.

In the illustrated embodiment, the brush holder is adapted to hold four brushes. To this end, there are four impaling pins 16 with the pins being located substantially equally spaced about the periphery of the sleeve 13. It will be obvious that the number of brushes which may be held by the holder may be varied at will and the invention is not to be construed as limited solely to the case of only four impaling pins. In addition more than one brush, if desired, may be held by an impaling pm.

In order to provide for each brush to be individually located with its bristles at the desired level in the solvent, there is shown three holes vertically aligned for each pin. The three holes in vertical alignment are hereinafter referred to as a line of holes, though if desired there may be more or less than three holes in a line. Each line of holes is substantially equally spaced about the periphery of the sleeve in the illustrated embodiment in order to provide equal spacing of the brushes though it is obvious that the disposition of the lines may be varied if desired.

The base 11 of the holder consists of a collar 18 having set screws 19 for releasably locking the base to the rod. The collar is essentially an annular ring formed with a plurality of equally spaced apertures 20 on its periphery. Into these apertures 20 the end portion of legs 21 may be manually inserted. These legs extend outwardly and downwardly as shown to have their outer end portions rest on the bottom 22 of the paint solvent container 23. The legs are preferably small rods which are easily cleaned so that upon removal of the holder only the legs have contacted the sludge which settles on the bottom of the container.

Shown in Figs. 2 and 3 is the holder as it is positioned within a container containing solvent 24. The legs 21 rest on the bottom 22 of the container while paint brushes having holes therein are held by the impaling pin such that only the desired amount of bristle of each brush is located in the solvent. In use the holder '10' is merely placed in a container 23 such as a gallon paint can and the sleeve '13 is moved along the rod 12 until the desired amount of bristle of each brush is immersed in the solvent and then locked thereto by the set screw 14. If one paint brush, for example, is immersed too deeply or too slightly in the solvent, its height may be individually varied by manually moving the impaling pin from one hole to another in its line of holes. It will thus be appreciated that the amount of solvent does not determine the length of bristle of the brushes which is located therein since this length may be varied merely by movement of the sleeve or by the irnpaling pins.

According to the present invention when it is desired to store or ship the paint brush holder of the present invent it may be formed into a compact package. Thus, to knock-down the holder or separate the parts thereof for convenient storage or packaging, the impaling pins 16 are manually removed from the sleeve and the legs 21 are manually removed from the collar 20. This is easily accomplished since there is a loose fit between the pins and the legs and their respective holes yet the holes are deep enough so that a suthcient length of pin or leg which is located within the holes provides the necessary support.

The legs 21 and pins 16 are preferably formed of metal to provide the necessary strength and resilience. The sleeve, collar and rod are formed of metal but plastic having sufiicient mechanical strength may be used, if desired.

It will be appreciated from the foregoing that there has been disclosed a paint brush holder which permits adjusting the length of bristle of a paint brush immersed in a solvent and yet which also permits individual adjustability of each brush. In addition, the holder of the present invention is capable of being merely positioned in the container and has no connection thereto which would require tools, etc. or a particular type of container. The holder, though when in use performs its intended function, may be disassembled with ease to form a compact package when it is desired to store or ship the holder.

Variations and modifications may be made within the scope of the claims and portions of the improvements may be used without others.

I claim:

1. A holder for holding paint brushes substantially vertically in a container having solvent therein comprising a base adapted to be positioned in the container, a vertical rod attached at its lower end portion to the base, ga sleeve slidably positioned on the rod and having a iplurality of holes formed therein extending toward the lcenter of the sleeve with the holes being axially spaced about the sleeve, at least one paint brush holding element having an end portion removably positioned in one of the holes and normally extending inclined upwardly therefrom on which a paint brush may be positioned, said sleeve having more holes than brush holding elements so that the element may be selectively positioned axially of the sleeve, and means for locking the sleeve on the rod a determined distance from the base to cause only the lower end portion of the brush bristles to be immersed in the solvent.

2. A holder for holding paint brushes substantially vertically in a container having solvent therein comprising a base adapted to be positioned in the container, a vertical rod attached at its lower end portion to the base, a sleeve slidably positioned on the rod and having a plurality of holes formed therein extending toward the center of the sleeve with the holes being axially spaced about the sleeve, at least one pin having an end portion removably positioned in one of the holes and normally extending outwardly and upwardly therefrom on which a paint brush may be impaled said sleeve having more holes than pins so that a pin may be selectively positioned axially of the sleeve, and means for locking the sleeve on the rod a determined distance from the base to cause only the lower end portion of the brush bristles to be immersed in the solvent.

3. A holder for holding paint brushes substantially vertically in a container having solvent therein comprising a base including a collar having at least three equally spaced apertures and legs extending inclined downwardly therefrom and adapted to be positioned in the container, a vertical rod attached at its lower end portion to the collar, a sleeve slidably positioned on the rod and having a plurality of holes formed therein extending toward the center of the sleeve with the holes being axially spaced about the sleeve, pins removably positioned in the holes and normally extending inclined upwardly therefrom on which paint brushes may be impaled, said sleeve having more holes than pins so that a pin may be selectively positioned axially of the sleeve, and means for locking the sleeve on the rod a determined distance from the base to cause only the lower end portion of the brush bristles to be located in the solvent.

4. The invention as defined in claim 2 in which the holes in the sieve are located in vertical lines with the lines being substantially equally spaced about the sleeve and there are as many pins as lines whereby a pin may be inserted in any hole in a line to vary the amount of bristle in the solvent.

References Cited in the file of this patent 5 UNITED STATES PATENTS 

